diff --git a/cpp/src/arrow/python/datetime.cc b/cpp/src/arrow/python/datetime.cc
index 8df2012d3a0..4b18918cbcf 100644
--- a/cpp/src/arrow/python/datetime.cc
+++ b/cpp/src/arrow/python/datetime.cc
@@ -415,6 +415,16 @@ Result<std::string> TzinfoToString(PyObject* tzinfo) {
   // HH:MM offset string representation
   if (PyObject_IsInstance(tzinfo, class_timezone.obj()) ||
       PyObject_IsInstance(tzinfo, class_fixedoffset.obj())) {
+    // still recognize datetime.timezone.utc as UTC (instead of +00:00)
+    OwnedRef tzname_object(PyObject_CallMethod(tzinfo, "tzname", "O", Py_None));
+    RETURN_IF_PYERROR();
+    if (PyUnicode_Check(tzname_object.obj())) {
+      std::string result;
+      RETURN_NOT_OK(internal::PyUnicode_AsStdString(tzname_object.obj(), &result));
+      if (result == "UTC") {
+        return result;
+      }
+    }
     return PyTZInfo_utcoffset_hhmm(tzinfo);
   }
 
diff --git a/python/pyarrow/tests/test_types.py b/python/pyarrow/tests/test_types.py
index 9ac2f01686f..4de5ffabfad 100644
--- a/python/pyarrow/tests/test_types.py
+++ b/python/pyarrow/tests/test_types.py
@@ -263,7 +263,7 @@ def test_is_primitive():
     # name from the tzinfo.zone attribute
     (pytz.timezone('Etc/GMT-9'), 'Etc/GMT-9'),
     (pytz.FixedOffset(180), '+03:00'),
-    (datetime.timezone.utc, '+00:00'),
+    (datetime.timezone.utc, 'UTC' if sys.version_info >= (3, 6) else '+00:00'),
     (datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(hours=1, minutes=30)), '+01:30')
 ])
 def test_tzinfo_to_string(tz, expected):